Chapter Twelve
DEVYN HAS TO LEAVE.
I watch him pack a small bag and try not to feel like a clingy newlywed. Which I am. But he doesn’t need to know that.
“Hartford,” he says without looking up. “Territory business. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“The investigation?”
He pauses. Just for a moment. “Among other things.”
I don’t push.
This is growth, Bailey. This is maturity. This is you, a grown woman, respecting your husband’s boundaries and trusting that he’ll tell you what you need to know.
I want to pester him with a thousand questions.
But I don’t. See? Growth.
“There’s a function tonight,” he continues. “Cross-territory. Diplomatic. I was supposed to host, but—”
“I’ll do it.”
The words are out before I’ve fully thought them through. But once they’re in the air, I don’t want to take them back. I’m his queen. This is what queens do, right? Host things. Smile at people. Not hide in their rooms reading books about transplanted lives.
Devyn looks at me. Really looks, with those golden eyes that see too much.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” I lift my chin. “But I want to. I’m the Queen of the South. Might as well start acting like it.”
The corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile—he doesn’t give those away easily—but something warm flickers behind his eyes.
Mrs. Lyme appears in the doorway, her face pinched with worry. “Sir, about the function—if the queen is to host alone, perhaps we should consider—”
“She’s not a child.” Devyn’s voice is dismissive. Final. “She can handle it.”
Mrs. Lyme’s mouth opens, then closes. She nods once and retreats.
I should feel bolstered by his confidence. And I do. Mostly.
But there’s a tiny, stupid part of me that wishes he’d been just a little more concerned. A little more reluctant to leave me alone with a room full of wolves.
Stop it, Bailey. He trusts you. That’s a good thing.
I straighten my shoulders. “I’m not a child. I can handle it.”
Devyn’s mouth curves. Just barely. “I know.”
He crosses the room to me. Cups my face in his hands. Studies me like he’s memorizing every detail—the shape of my eyes, the curve of my mouth, the single dimple that only shows when I really smile.
My pulse kicks up.
“Then why,” I manage, “do you look like you’re planning something?”
“I’m always planning something.”
His gaze drops to my mouth.
Tenth time. I’m still counting.
And then he kisses me.
Not soft. Not gentle. This kiss is thorough—his mouth slanting over mine, his hand sliding into my hair, tilting my head exactly where he wants it. He kisses me like he’s staking a claim. Like he’s leaving something behind for me to remember while he’s gone.
My toes curl in my shoes.
When he pulls back, I’ve forgotten my own name. My face is burning. My knees have apparently decided they’re not interested in supporting my weight anymore.
“Be safe,” he murmurs against my lips.
And then he’s gone, and I’m standing in the middle of the room with my hand pressed to my mouth and my heart doing something completely unreasonable in my chest.
What was I supposed to be doing again?
Right. Function. Hosting. Queen duties.
I can do this.
I’ve got this.
I am going to absolutely crush this.
THREE HOURS LATER, and I’m fairly certain the world is crushing me instead.
The grand ballroom of Chaleur Estate is filled with people I don’t know, all of them watching me with sharp eyes and sharper smiles.
The chandeliers cast everything in warm amber—2700K, my photographer brain supplies automatically—the kind of light that should make everyone look soft and approachable. It doesn’t.
I’m wearing a midnight-blue gown that Mrs. Lyme selected for me. It’s beautiful. Elegant. The kind of dress that says I belong here.
I do not feel like I belong here.
The noble women circle me in slow orbits, their smiles showing teeth but never reaching their eyes.
They remind me of a shoot I assisted once—a jewelry campaign where the models were positioned to look like they were at a party, but every angle was calculated, every gesture rehearsed.
These women have the same practiced quality.
The same awareness of exactly where the light hits their faces.
“So lovely to finally meet you, Your Majesty.”
“What a surprise your marriage was.”
“We’ve all been so curious about the new queen.”
Curious. Right. That’s one word for it.
I smile until my face aches. I make small talk about things I don’t understand. I try to remember names and titles and which territory each person represents, and I’m failing spectacularly at all of it.
And then I see Amos.
He’s standing near the champagne table with a woman on his arm—pretty, dark-haired, leaning into him like he’s the sun and she’s been cold for years. She’s laughing at something he said, her whole body turned toward him, and he’s...
Bored.
His smile is perfect. His posture is attentive. But his eyes are somewhere else entirely, scanning the room even as he murmurs something that makes her laugh again.
Something about it makes my skin prickle. I can’t articulate why. He’s being polite. Charming, even. But there’s a disconnect between what he’s doing and what he’s feeling, and the gap between them feels...wrong.
I turn away—I can avoid him, I can definitely avoid him—and that’s when it happens.
A woman in emerald green appears at my elbow. Her smile is apologetic. Her eyes are not.
“Oh no!”
Red wine splashes across the front of my midnight-blue gown.
I stare down at the spreading stain. At the ruined silk. At three hours of careful preparation destroyed in a single calculated motion.
“How clumsy of me!” The woman’s voice drips with false sympathy. “I’m so terribly sorry, Your Majesty.”
Gasps ripple through the crowd. Murmurs. The distinct sound of people trying not to laugh.
“Queen Bailey.”
The voice is cool. Quiet. So low it shouldn’t carry, and yet somehow it cuts through the murmurs like a knife through silk.
A man suddenly shows up in front of me, and it takes me a moment to realize who it is.
Quinn Haydraugh.
The King of the North is beautiful in a way that’s intimidating. Silver-blond hair. Features so perfectly symmetrical they seem almost inhuman. Eyes the color of glacial ice—pale blue, nearly colorless, utterly cold. In this warm amber light, he should look golden. He doesn’t.
He photographs cold, I think absurdly. Like his skin rejects warmth on principle.
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t offer comfort or sympathy. He simply inclines his head—barely, like even that small movement is a concession—and says, “Allow me.”
Before I can respond, his hand is at my elbow—not touching, just guiding—and we’re moving through the crowd. People part for him like water around a glacier. No one speaks. No one even seems to breathe.
He leads me to a side corridor. Summons a servant with a glance. Words are exchanged—quiet, efficient—and suddenly there’s a young woman at my side with fresh towels and what looks like an entire emergency dress repair kit.
“Thank you,” I manage. “I—”
I turn.
He’s gone.
I blink at the empty space where the King of the North was standing two seconds ago. The corridor is silent. The air still feels cold where he’d been.
What just happened?
“Your Majesty?” The young woman with the towels is looking at me expectantly. “I can help with the stain. It won’t take long.”
I shake off my confusion. “Yes. Thank you. That would be—yes.”
The young woman works quickly. The stain fades to something almost invisible, and when I return to the ballroom fifteen minutes later, I look mostly presentable again.
Coincidence, I tell myself. Quinn Haydraugh just happened to be nearby. He’s a king. Kings attend diplomatic functions. It doesn’t mean anything.
Definitely a coincidence.
Obviously.
THE SECOND INCIDENT happens forty minutes later.
I’m standing near the refreshment table, trying to look like I belong while simultaneously avoiding Amos’s too-watchful gaze, when a waiter approaches with a tray of hors d’oeuvres.
“Would Madame care for a canapé?”
I glance at the tray. Tiny, elegant things that look like edible art.
“What are they?” I ask.
“Coquilles Saint-Jacques, Madame.”
Oh no.
That’s a lot of syllables. French syllables. At a party hosted by the wife of a French mafia king.
I pick one up, because refusing food is apparently also a social faux pas, and smile at a nearby cluster of noble women who are watching me with barely concealed interest. “These are delicious,” I say. “The, um. The co-quil-lays.”
Silence.
One woman’s eyebrow arches so high it nearly disappears into her hairline.
“I believe,” she says, her voice dripping with condescension, “it’s pronounced co-KEEY Saint-ZHAHK.”
My face flames.
“Of course. I—”
“Actually, I rather liked her pronunciation.”
The voice is warm. Golden. Like sunlight made audible.
A man materializes beside me—where did he even come from?—and the smile he gives the group is dazzling. Genuinely dazzling. Golden hair, golden skin, a face that belongs on currency or cathedral ceilings. In direct light, he’d overexpose. Too bright. Too much.
Skye Wyndham. King of the West.
“Co-quil-lays.” He picks up one of the canapés and pops it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “You know, I think that’s how I’ll say it from now on. We’re not native French speakers, after all. Why should we twist our tongues into pretzels?”
He turns to the cluster of women.
And smiles.
It’s the kind of smile that makes you think of sunshine and warm beaches and friendly golden retrievers, right up until you notice his eyes. His eyes are steel. Cold. The smile of a man who could break every bone in your body and make it look like an accident.
“Don’t you all agree?”
The women’s faces contort like they’ve bitten into something rotten.
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Pronunciation isn’t important.”
“Not important at all, ha ha ha.”
The laughter is painful. Forced. Like glass being ground between teeth.
Skye winks at me—actually winks—and murmurs, “Lovely party, by the way.”
“I—thank you—”
But he’s already gone. Vanished into the crowd like morning mist.
I stand there, still holding my co-quil-lay, trying to process what just happened.
Two kings. Two rescues.
Still a coincidence, I tell myself firmly. They’re kings. They’re at a cross-territory function. Of course they’d mingle with the hostess. That’s just...politics. Diplomacy. Normal diplomatic things that normal diplomats do.
Right.
Totally normal.
Nothing to see here.
THE THIRD INCIDENT happens near the balcony.
I’ve stepped outside for air—just for a moment, just to breathe—when a familiar voice makes my skin crawl.
“You seem lonely without your husband.”
Amos Karp steps out of the shadows. Too close. Too familiar. His smile is the same as always—warm, sympathetic, wrong.
“I could keep you company,” he says. “If you’d like.”
Every instinct I have screams run.
“I’m fine, thank you.” My voice comes out steady. Good. “I was just—”
“The lady doesn’t need company.”
The voice is a low growl. Direct. Final.
A man steps between us—broader than the others, darker, with a scar cutting through one eyebrow. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t offer pleasantries. His weight is forward, shoulders loose, and there’s something feral in his stance. A predator waiting for an excuse.
Wolfe Sideris. King of the East.
“Move along, Karp.”
It’s not a suggestion.
Amos’s charm flickers. Just for a moment. Just enough for me to see the calculation underneath—cold, sharp, dangerous.
Then the mask slides back into place.
“Of course. Enjoy your evening, Your Majesty.”
He retreats.
Wolfe turns to me. His eyes scan my face once—checking, I realize, for any sign of harm—and then he nods. Just once.
And walks away.
Three.
Three kings. Three rescues.
This is...
Okay, this is getting a little weird. But it’s probably still a coincidence. A very strange, statistically improbable coincidence. Maybe all three kings just happen to have excellent timing and a strong sense of chivalry and—
“You haven’t figured it out yet, have you?”
The voice is bright. Cheerful. Completely unbothered by my shell-shocked expression.
I turn to find a young woman standing behind me.
She’s maybe nineteen, with dark hair piled artfully on top of her head and eyes that sparkle with barely contained amusement.
Her gown is a soft rose gold, and she carries herself with the easy confidence of someone who has never once doubted her place in the world.
“I’m Celine,” she says, extending her hand. “Quinn’s ward. Well, technically his ward. In practice, I’m his future wife. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
I blink. “I’m sorry—what?”
“Quinn.” She waves a dismissive hand. “I’m going to marry him. He’s just being difficult about it because he thinks he’s incapable of love or whatever. Men are so dramatic.” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway, that’s not important right now. What’s important is your royal babysitters.”
“My what?”
“Devyn called the other kings before he left,” she confides. “Asked them to keep an eye on you tonight.”
“Oh.”
“You’re blushing,” Celine exclaims. “That’s adorable. Quinn never makes me blush. He just makes me want to throw things at his head.”
I press my hands to my cheeks. They’re burning.
“I’m not—I just—”
“You’re in love with him.” Celine says it like a fact. “And he’s clearly obsessed with you, or he wouldn’t have called in favors from three kings to keep you safe at a party.” She grins. “I like you. We’re going to be friends.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
So I just stand there, hands pressed to my burning cheeks, while Celine loops her arm through mine and declares that we’re going to spend the rest of the evening together because, in her words, “Someone needs to protect you from the vultures, and it might as well be someone who actually likes you.”
And somehow—impossibly—the rest of the night isn’t terrible.
Celine is unstoppable. She talks over interruptions, doesn’t register the social cues that should slow her down, and barrels through awkward silences like they’re not even there.
She deflects barbed comments with cheerful obliviousness.
She steers me away from Amos three separate times.
She tells me stories about Quinn that make me choke on my champagne—stories he would probably have her imprisoned for sharing, she admits, but she’s not worried because “he’d miss me too much. ”
By the time the crowd thins and the evening winds down, my heart feels so full it might actually burst.
He called them. For me.
I’m standing near the edge of the ballroom, watching the last guests trickle out, when I realize I’m swaying.
Not from exhaustion. From...happiness.
Can I take this as a sign that maybe, just maybe...
The King of the South is starting to have feelings for his accidental bride.